


MS Found in a Jutland Church

by PurpleWyrm



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 00:28:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17415494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleWyrm/pseuds/PurpleWyrm
Summary: An unusual perspective on the Team's adventures...(Contains mild use of language)





	MS Found in a Jutland Church

**Entry 1**  
  
Well, where to start?  
  
I guess there's no point trying to avoid the matter. I am dead. The rash disease got me, the paramedics bought me to the aid station at the Kastellet and I perished. I remain - with a bunch of other unfortunate souls - in the old chapel floating around wondering what we're going to do with the rest of our lives. Or non-lives. Un-lives? The rest of our existence anyway.  
  
The medics who were looking after us are gone and the city outside is silent. I'm not sure how much time has passed since I fell unconscious, but there's already a build up of dust everywhere. Karl - that's one of the other spirits - reckons it's been two months, apparently on the basis that he's "always been really good at guessing the time". I'm less than convinced, but what other information do we have to go on?  
  
I haven't learned everyone's name yet - there's about a dozen of us - but so far I've mostly been talking to Karl, Maja, Neils, Ella and Ivar. They all seem very nice and I'm sure we'll all get along fine once we get used to each other and our new home.  
  
If I'm perfectly honest I'm a bit surprised to be here at all, let alone stuck in the old chapel (we can't go outside - it's like there's an invisible wall). I've never put much stead in religion and the afterlife, let alone ghosts. Well, I certainly screwed up there - is my face red! Well, it would be if I still had one...  
  
In any case we've been here for a couple of weeks now and there's a distinct lack of saints and angels coming to guide us home, or devils to drag us under. I'm sure something will turn up sooner or later, but to pass the time until it does I've decided to start this diary. It may not seem like there's much going on, but I'm sure I'll find plenty of things to write about!  
  
_Here are skipped 30,242 entries concerning the weather, speculation about how various TV characters would react to the rash disease, increasing annoyance with the other ghosts, and detailed records of the habits of rabbits and squirrels._  
  
**Entry 30,244**  
  
Well, this is exciting! We've had visitors! Actual living visitors! This is the most thrilling thing to happen since the fireworks display over at the airport!  
  
There were three of them, a big man, a small girl with a camera (and a kitten for some reason), and a skinny redheaded boy with a really impressive braid. I tried to invite them in but I don't think they could see me. Well, maybe the boy could, but he didn't seem very happy about it. Actually he seemed extremely scared. Am I scary? I don't mean to be scary, but I guess unexpectedly running into a discarnate spirit might be a bit startling.  
  
Anyway they didn't stay long. The big man rifled through some drawers and cupboards and pocketed a packet of medical supplies. I tried telling him to take all he wanted, we certainly don't need them anymore, but Neils told me to shut up. Then he floated around the chapel waving his arms and making moaning sounds. Neils that is, not the big man. Then they left.  
  
But here's the amazing thing! I don't get the metaphysics of it, but by taking something away with them the visitors have broken the barrier that's kept us stuck in here for the last 90 years - we're finally free! We can go out and see what's become of the world!   
  
Maja (she's always been a bit impulsive) flew straight out the door, then flew straight back in wailing about the light. Apparently direct sunlight burns whatever it is we're made out of (I say direct because the light coming through the windows doesn't hurt - mind you they haven't been washed for almost a century). This is a bit of a blow but I then guess we have to expect some challenges, what with being ghosts and all. But when night comes we should be free to roam!  
  
Ivar being Ivar insisted that we should vote on what to do with our newfound freedom. I suggested we go to the Tivoli Gardens. Neils suggested we should take savage and relentless revenge on the living for 90 years of unendurable torment (oh yes, it's been a barrel of laughs living with you too Neils). I think I argued a good case, but the vote ended up going Neils' way. So we're currently waiting for the sun to go down before heading out and destroying everyone we meet. What a simply  _lovely_ way to re-enter the world (that's sarcasm in case you couldn't tell).  
  
**Entry 30,245**  
  
Well, talk about a crazy evening!  
  
As soon as it got dark enough we set out, mob handed, to hunt down the living and punish them for their temerity in still being alive and coming to visit us. As it turns out there weren't very many of them. The entire city is in ruins! I had held out some hope that Copenhagen had survived the rash and was simply full of very quiet people who didn't like visiting historic forts, but it looks like Karl was right with his constant moaning about the end of civilisation.  
  
There was enough snow around that we were able to follow our visitors' tracks back to some strange kind of camper van badly parked in the middle of the Amalienborg (there's never a parking inspector around when you need one!). Niels had spent a whole lot of time talking about stealth and creeping through the shadows, but Johan and his idiot friends just zoomed along out in the open, despite Neils yelling at them (they were probably overexcited at being outside after all these years).  
  
Then... it got kind of weird. We were still in the Amalienborg, but we were  _also_ in a swamp. And a field. It's all a bit mixed up in my head but I remember a whole load of yelling, some kind of force field, a cat, a dog and a bunch of sheep running around (if it wasn't for everyone else remembering the same stuff I'd think I'd hallucinated it all...).  
  
One thing I  _do_ clearly remember though was being attacked by an  _owl_! A goddamn  _owl_ came swooping down out of nowhere, ripped a chunk out of Ivar, yelled a bunch of gibberish at us in Finnish and then  _exploded_ with so much force it knocked us out of whatever crazy dimension we were floating around in and back into the Amalienborg just in time to see the camper van vanishing off into the dusk.  
  
Then - as if that wasn't  _enough_ \- a bunch of us found ourself all kind of smooshed together into a sort of ghostly amalgam. Me, Neils, Maja, Karl and four or five others all lumped together like modelling clay. We've all been trying to get free from it but no one has managed it yet.  
  
Struggling to get back on our feet, trying to make sense what just what happened and figuring out how to walk when tangled up with half a dozen other people took up at least half an hour, and by the time we got moving again the sun had well and truly set. Neils insisted on pursuing the explorers (I'm pretty sure they must be explorers from some other, friendlier part of the world) so we traipsed off into the city only to find it full of horribly mutated monsters! Giant blobs on spindly legs, crawling things like giant lobsters, hairy rolling balls with dozens of eyes - it was like being in a Hieronymus Bosch painting! Johan's little gang freaked right out and wanted to go back to the Kastellet, but Neils yelled at them until they fell in line (although I think Maja pointing out that we're all already dead so nothing could possibly happen to us that's worse that what's  _already_ happened to us is what really changed their minds).  
  
We must have given the explorers a real fright because we totally failed to catch up with them before dawn. We're currently hunkered down for the daylight hours in a nice, shady patch of suburban woods (gotta stay out of that sunlight!) and will pick up the chase tonight - assuming no one can talk any sense into Neils.  
  
Oh, I almost forgot. On the way out of town we found some kind of land whale expiring by the railway tracks. Neils insisted on absorbing its ghost to "increase our spiritual mass". I'm not quite sure what that means, but there's a blobby, whale-like thing floating around now.  
  
**Entry 30,246**  
  
Attempts to extricate myself from the owl-induced ghost-gestalt have not been successful. No one else has managed to break free either. It's very strange, we're all clumped together as part of the same mass, but we're all separate as well. I can look at Neils and Karl and Maja and see them as individuals doing their own individual things in their own individual spaces, but at the same time we're floating around as one big clump of ghost stuff. It's unnecessarily metaphysical.  
  
Neils has leapt upon this new state of being with shrieks of glee. He's been running all around the place dragging us with him - a trick the rest of us can't seem to pull off. He claims 'the power of his hatred' gives him 'dominion' over 'weaker souls', which sounds exactly like the kind of thing he  _would_ believe. Still, it might be true. I'll try remembering the musical career of Christopher Nissen and see if I get any stronger.  
  
Some rabbits were hopping around our refuge not long after dawn. They reminded me so much of the ones back at the Kastellet that I couldn't resist trying to pat one. It took off so fast that it scared a bunch of birds out a nearby tree, making an  _awful_ racket.  
  
Neils spent the next ten minutes yelling at me about the importance of stealth. I think this is going to be a long trip.  
  
**Entry 30,247**  
  
The land whale thing Niels insisted on absorbing the other night keeps making blubbering sounds in my ear. It's all very well 'increasing our spiritual mass' but is he the one sitting up all day listening to a chorus of "blub blub blub blub"? No he is not.  
  
The explorers are continuing westwards and we're following in their wake. Maybe they're heading for the museums at Roskilde?  
  
**Entry 30,248**  
  
We've well and truly left the city now and are now drifting our way across the countryside. This has slowed us down a bit, ruins create plenty of shadows to slink through even at dawn and dusk, but with open fields - no matter how overgrown - we need to hunker down as soon as the sun shows its face. I'm hoping this will give the explorers time to get away from us, or at least build up a decent lead. I really have no interest in 'tearing their immortal souls to shreds', as Neils so eloquently puts it.  
  
Even out here in the countryside we're running into an increasing number of those monsters. Some clearly used to be animals, but the rest could have been just about  _anything_. Liesse says that they're what people who didn't die from the disease turned into. Well, thank heavens for small mercies! Apparently before she got sick people had started calling them trolls, which seems as good a name as any.  
  
I tried talking to one last night, plague victim to plague victim, but it just made a strange howling sound with far too many vowels in it and rolled away. Probably used to be a Finn.  
  
**Entry 30,249**  
  
Neils has decided to recruit and/or absorb any other ghosts we encounter. Most of them seem to be able to move around freely rather than being trapped like we were. Also there's a lot less of them than I'd expect. Denmark seems to be completely depopulated but there's only a scattering of fellow discarnate spirits. Did we get lucky? Or maybe unlucky? I'm not sure I can tell.  
  
Or maybe there's just a big ghost party in Aarhus and we haven't been invited?  
  
**Entry 30,250**  
  
Walking, walking, walking. All we do is walk. Or possibly drift. We crossed the great belt bridge last night. Frankly I'm surprised it's still standing. I wonder if the Øresundsbroen is still intact?  
  
The explorers seem to be making for Odense, although I can't imagine it's in any better shape than Copenhagen. We sent Jan - one of the faster moving ghosts - to spy on them, and he reported that there's six of them in total. In addition to the three who came to the Kastellet there's a quiet, skinny lad who runs around all night and sleeps all day, a statuesque redheaded woman who shouts a lot, and a short young man with apparently no memorable features at all. I suspect we should have sent one of the  _other_ ghosts, Jan seems to have spent most of his time mooning over the redhead rather than gathering useful intelligence.  
  
I remain unconvinced about this revenge thing. Maybe we can go to Legoland instead?  
  
**Entry 30,251**  
  
We've absorbed a horse! Well, a troll horse, but it means we can be horse shaped now!  _Neeeeeeeigh!_  
  
There was a lot of squabbling over who got to control each leg. Karl wanted all four because he 'used to ride horses and knows how they work' (funny that he hasn't mentioned this even once in the last 90 years). After several hours of bickering Niels ended up spawning a bunch of extra legs so everyone can have one. I've got the third one on the left!  
  
**Entry 30,252**  
  
Spent the entire night walking along a ruined freeway. I entertained myself by manifesting inside wrecked cars and making  _vroom vroom!_  noises.  
  
I fear the stress may be getting to me.  
  
**Entry 30,253**  
  
I saw a tin can on the road last night and couldn't resist kicking it, which made us fall over right in front of all the other ghosts. Neils got very upset and has sworn vengeance on whoever's responsible.  
  
I'm going to keep my head down for a few days.  
  
**Entry 30,254**  
  
Before we set out this evening I suggested that maybe we could take the night off the whole pursuing vengeance to the ends of the Earth thing and celebrate Christmas. Sure we lost track of the exact date decades ago, but it's certainly the right time of year, and I figured we could all use a break and a bit of a cheer up.  
  
Neils said that we are the forsaken dead and human celebrations are but dust and ashes to us.  
  
I am attempting to manifest an elf hat and party blower in protest.  
  
**Entry 30,255**  
  
Liesse was looking at me funny all night. Does she know about the can?  
  
Or is it just the elf hat?  
  
**Entry 30,256**  
  
Neils has taken my leg away :(  
  
**Entry 30,257**  
  
More endless nights tramping across the countryside without even the amusement of having a leg to play with. If I did have a leg I'd use it to kick Neils.  
  
**Entry 30,258**  
  
Neils has spent the last few nights rounding up trolls. I told him to leave the poor things alone. He said that compassion is the hobgoblin of small minds. There's only one being acting like a goblin around here and it's not me.  
  
Odense is on the horizon. It looks every bit as bleak as Copenhagen.  
  
**Entry 30,259**  
  
I'd hoped that all our cross country wanderings might have given the explorers time to get away from us, but we've managed to catch up with them in the ruins of Odense. They apparently spent the afternoon rampaging around the city hospital, breaking things and then running away with a box of medical records. We know this because we stumbled over a whole bunch of highly agitated ghosts and trolls milling around in the lobby. Their leader - the discarnate spirit of a janitor - was practically incandescent about it all.  
  
Removing the records has apparently worked whatever magic freed us from the chapel and the hospital ghosts are now free to roam. Neils immediately promised the janitor ghost vengeance for having his chairs rearranged (apparently the most unforgivable of their trespasses) and he talked the rest of them into joining up with us.  
  
So, here we all are, hunkered down in a ruined garden store waiting for the sun to set. I'm going to concentrate really hard and see if I can send some kind of psychic warning (I never used to believe in psychic powers, but then I never believed in ghosts either so I figure it's got to be better than doing nothing).  
  
**Entry 30,260**  
  
Well. Where do I start?  
  
I don't know if I actually managed to send the explorers a psychic warning (I seriously doubt it) but one of them - the skinny one - came poking around just before sunset anyway and spotted us. Neils tried setting a troll on him, but he managed to get away. Neils was NOT happy, but there was still too much light to go chasing him, so we had to sit tight and stew in the knowledge that the explorers would be organising some kind of defence.  
  
When the sun finally set Neils got everyone up and gave what he no doubt thought was a rousing speech about fire, blood and the inevitable vengeance of the restless dead (I sat at the back and made funny faces at him, but I don't think he noticed). Then we were off, driving the poor stupid trolls before us as cannon fodder.  
  
The explorers had set up in an open pasture and had rigged up some kind of mine field that took down the first wave of trolls (I was seriously impressed, half the camper van must have been packed with explosives!). Several of the explorers were perched on top of the van with rifles and started picking off the trolls that made it through.  
  
Neils picked a path through the mines, dragging us all with him and ran into the skinny explorer who proceeded to punch him in the face (which I wouldn't have thought at all possible if I hadn't seen it). It didn't do much, and Neils started on the dramatic villain speech he'd been practising under his breath for the last week "Mwahaha! Are you less weak now? Your DOOM has come upon you..." and so on. The skinny explorer just ignored him and threw up some kind of force field - which suggests there must have been some really impressive developments in physics over the last century.  
  
But I digress. The second wave of trolls had got through the mine field and were causing havoc, there were flames and explosions and bullets flying everywhere and most of the hospital ghosts just ran away - apart from the janitor who was zooming around the battlefield screaming about upholstery.  
  
Then it got  _CRAZY_. Out of nowhere  _A GODDAMN GIGANTIC EAGLE MADE OF GODDAMN FIRE_  flew out of the night, set all the trolls on fire and smacked Neils in the face with a wing, screaming in Finnish all the while! It was the wildest thing I've ever seen, and I've been dead for almost a century! The trolls fled, Neils fled - dragging us with him - and the janitor simply dissolved out of sheer terror.  
  
We retreated back to the garden centre. Whatever the eagle thing was it's taken a big chunk out of our gestalt. Neils has been hit particularly hard. He's spent the entire night crying in the corner, whining about how it's just not fair.  
  
I did try to cheer him up by saying I was sure we could find some other innocent people (ideally ones unable to call on giant firebirds) to terrorise, but he just growled at me.  
  
I imagine the explorers will be off in the morning and this whole stupid chase will resume.  
  
**Entry 30,261**  
  
Well apparently the explorers haven't left yet - the skinny one paid us a visit this afternoon!  
  
He came right up to the garden centre (although he was careful to stay in the sunlight) and proceeded to show us a bunch of abstract art. I'm not sure what the point of the exercise was, I certainly wouldn't go seeking artistic criticism from a gestalt supernatural entity bent on my destruction, but each to their own I guess.  
  
I didn't think much of it all to be honest but Neils - still sulking of course - had a very strong reaction to one of the pieces. I never would have picked him for Stendhal syndrome, but I guess there's an artistic soul buried in there somewhere!  
  
The whole thing seemed to perk him up a bit anyway. As soon as it got dark he dragged us back to the explorers' camp and stood in the darkness yelling the rest of his villain speech at them. I doubt they heard any of it, but it seemed to make him feel a bit better at least.  
  
**Entry 30,262**  
  
Neils has announced we're taking a few rest days. Or nights. Or whatever. He claims this is for 'morale' but frankly I think he's afraid of the eagle. He keeps glancing skywards when he thinks no one's looking. And a duck flew past earlier today and he  _flinched_.  
  
I'm just happy to rest up and give the explorers a chance to get away from us. I did have some hope that the disastrous outcome of the attack might have convinced Neils to give the whole thing up, but he's still fixated on 'revenge'. I asked around the hospital ghosts to see if any of them have the psychiatric or counselling experience to have a talk with him, but it turns out they're all anaesthesiologists.  
  
**Entry 30,263**  
  
It seems the explorers are also taking some rest days. Liesse reckons the attack damaged their camper van and they're stuck, but I don't trust her after the whole leg business.  
  
**Entry 30,264**  
  
And finally we're off! Because the explorers are off. Their van is moving slowly and making some very nasty noises, Liesse might have been right after all.  
  
We've just about made it to Jutland. Honestly this is the furthest I've ever walked (drifted?) in my life. It's kind of ironic that now I'm dead I'm getting all the exercise I should have got while I was alive.  
  
I wonder what effect this is having on my "spiritual mass"?  
  
**Entry 30,265**  
  
We've crossed into Jutland and are just one good night's gallop from Billund. Plan Legoland is go!  
  
**Entry 30,266**  
  
No one wants to go to Legoland :(  
  
**Entry 30,267**  
  
I don't know why, but we are continually pestered by supernatural birds. We were just settling down in a burnt out shed for the day when a swan appeared out of nowhere and asked if anyone needed a lift to Tuonella (which I think is just south of Tampere?). Neils told it to "flee lest it be destroyed" and it waddled away muttering about "trying to save on paperwork".  
  
Sometimes I wonder if I'm still at the Kastellet and have been driven into madness by sheer tedium.  
  
**Entry 30,268**  
  
The explorers have abandoned the camper van and are proceeding on foot. Neils claims that this is because their morale has broken under our relentless assault, but Karl took a quick look at the engine as we drifted past and says it appears to have exploded.  
  
They’ve also split up, which Neils describes as a pathetic attempt to avoid our wrath. We're following the big man, the redhead woman (much to Jan's delight) and the boy with the braid. They're pushing a wheelbarrow full of supplies which (unfortunately) is leaving a nice, easy trail to follow. All of them are looking rather worse for wear and down in the dumps - maybe they're sad about having to abandon the van? Hopefully some healthy exercise will perk them up.  
  
I can't help wondering where they're headed. They seemed to be heading hell for leather for the Nordsøen, but now they've swung around to the east. Ivar says there must be a surviving settlement on Samsø (apparently the entire island was running on renewables before the rash disease), but if that’s the case why didn’t they just head north from Odense? So many mysteries in this strange new world.  
  
We've taken shelter in a burnt out van for the day. It's very cosy, but it prompted Malthe to start talking about his roadie job with the Roskilde Stones (Zealand's best Rolling Stones tribute act apparently). Yes, you broke down outside of Esbjerg and had to walk twelve miles through the snow to a service station and then it turned out the drummer was sitting on a fuel can the whole time. It wasn't funny the last six hundred times you told it, Malthe!  
  
**Entry 30,269**  
  
Another night walking across Jutland. Maja has been talking (quietly) about getting away from Neils. Apparently she has an idea on how it could work. I'm all ears, but she doesn't want to reveal it just yet.  
  
**Entry 30,270**  
  
And once again we prepare for an attack. I wonder what kind of Finnish speaking bird will fend us off this time? Perhaps a dream duck will rain explosive eggs on us while singing  _Pomppufiilis_?  
  
The explorers have holed up inside a church. This has set Neils off, he's spent the last few hours cackling about "sanctuary" and how "holy ground won't protect them". I told him "This isn't _The Highlander_ and you're not the Kurgan" but he just ignored me.  
  
I was never really a churchgoer but I'm not so sure about this place. I get a very odd feeling from it. Not a creepy feeling, more like a... peaceful feeling? That really doesn't make much sense but it seems kind of wrong to launch a full scale ghost assault on the place. Or maybe I'm just coming down with something. Can ghosts get the flu?  
  
Maja's revealed her plan. She thinks we might be able to break Niels' hold on us if we all try together while he's busy breaking heads and yelling about doom. It's got to be worth a try. I don't think I can take much more of his self-declared war on the living. If I can get away I might go to Helsingør. I've never been to Helsingør. I believe the castle is very traditional for ghosts.  
  
Ah, Neils has given the word. In we go, I'll report back how things went tomorrow. Badly if history is any judge.  
  
Stupid Neils.  
  
_Here the diary ends._

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2018 SSSS Forum Advent Calendar.
> 
> Phew, this was a tricky one to write! Assembling a timeline and fitting everything around it took a while, not to mention the looming deadline of the Advent Calendar. Still, I'm very happy with the results.
> 
> I've been a bit cheeky and included a cameo appearance of someone else's OC. Can you spot it?
> 
> Also, this is the second of my SSSS fics to mention _Pomppufiilis_. You can pry _Pomppufiilis_ from my cold, dead hands!!


End file.
